Times article on surrogacy

Highest rated comment so far:
"At no point in this article is the surrogate treated as anything other than a vessel to carry someone else’s baby. There is just one mention of her which uses a term for a human - as a mum to her biological children. Everywhere else, she is referred to as a surrogate, effectively a substitute rather than a person, or even worse a gestational carrier, a kind of bag to carry someone else’s property.

The risks and burdens to the woman’s health, her emotions about the child growing within, & the effects of this upon her family are not given a moment’s consideration. The risk that the baby is abandoned by the commissioning would have been parents, perhaps because of disability, is not mentioned. Nor is any thought given to the child. A child knows the voice of its mother. Her voice will calm & sooth the child like no one else’s because of their bond together. The mother’s milk will come in, but the child is denied it.

I’ve come to the view that we should ban surrogacy. It exploits women who have few alternative choices to gain an income. It demands too great sacrifices of the mother and the child. However desperately people might want biological offspring, it is not a right which others should have to deliver."

It's interesting that he mentions Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments at the start of the article. So he isn't entirely unaware that there are such things as moral considerations.

'if I may, I’d like to tap into your sympathy '

Can't answer that without getting very sweary, mate.

I'm so glad the mother and baby stayed together.

The phrase 'your baby' was what got to me -
But within hours of the birth — out of the blue — the surrogate tells you she has changed her mind and wants to keep your infant. Soon after, she leaves the hospital with your child and, eight agonising months later, your case is finally heard by a judge who rules that the surrogate is allowed to keep your baby. For ever.

It makes the woman who carried and gave birth to the baby sound like a shoplifter😡

I also note the sense of entitlement in
you’ll have to go down the surrogacy route where someone else compassionately carries your baby for you.

Obviously it is tragic if a woman who wants to have a baby can't because she has had ovarian cancer, which is 'in remission in this case'. But there are choices to be made and surrogacy is only one of them. There's no 'have to' involved.

Wow @nythbran2 that article is enraging! I'm very glad he had his arse handed to him in the comments. The "wrong" parents indeed. The fucking entitlement of it!!

There was a thread the other day on egg donation:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5358298-bbc-scotland-recruiting-young-women-as-egg-donors?

Definitely a dogwhistle for classism too: 'she's a mum of 4 already at 33, who knows how many more babies she'll fire out- decent middle class people may as well benefit from her fecklessless'

It takes a long time but you eventually find a surrogate via Facebook — a 33-year-old mum of four.
This person is happy for the life of a (theoretical) mother of 4 children to be put at risk? For their selfish desires?!
It's time to stop all this and respect women, children and families.

Something else that apparently only affects a 'tiny number', so just shut up and #BeKind.

It will reduce all women to just incubators on legs. How long before it turns into women 'must' be willing to incubate a couples progeny in order to be thought kindly of, to it's 'your duty to' incubate for your betters.

It needs banned.

Thanks for the share- can't read comments unfortunately. The irony of opening with a call to empathy then dehumanising the woman at the centre of his story. I just can't understand why anyone would still want to remove a baby when the birth mother (not 'gestational carrier') has changed her mind. Yes it'd be extremely disappointing, devastating even, but yes mate- you'd just have to accept it. It's not just about genetics- their blood and heartbeats have been intertwined. We say 'blood relative', not 'genetic relative'. He's speaking as if woman and baby are strangers to each other. Bonding has begun even pre birth, they've been with each other every second, but he's acting as if tagging along for a few scans outweighs that. What empathy.